


Bathing the Wookiee

by Lauren (notalwaysweak)



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-12
Updated: 2016-01-12
Packaged: 2018-05-13 12:18:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5707807
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notalwaysweak/pseuds/Lauren
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Smuggling's a dirty business. Sometimes literally.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bathing the Wookiee

**Author's Note:**

> _Star Wars_ characters do not belong to me and I am making no money off this work of fan fiction.
> 
> Betaed by Meg, with thanks.
> 
> * * *

Smuggling’s a dirty business in so many ways, especially when you go from a dry desert planet to somewhere that’s sticky, humid, and not quite hot enough to ever dry off completely, and then back again all in the space of a few days.

Han leads Chewbacca around the side of the central building at the fuelling station, his target a smaller structure set away from the reek of fumes that hangs heavy in the air. The Wookiee’s head hangs low, his feet dragging, and he lets out a querulous growl that, while quiet for him, still gets the attention of anyone within a good twenty yards.

“I know, I know, but we’ll clear it off soon,” Han soothes him. He’s carrying a bucket in one hand; Chewbacca carries another one, each filled with a glutinous liquid. They’re marked on the sides, with S and C respectively.

There aren’t many smaller ships at the station today, meaning there’s a whole bay available just for them. Han sets his bucket down and methodically strips to just his pants; there’s no sense in getting everything saturated. Chewbacca also sets his buckets down, but he doesn’t have any clothing to remove. He just has his dense hair—dense hair that is clotted with dust that turns to stubborn mud and then to dust again deeper in the layers of fur. He peers anxiously out of the ropy strands that are matted around his eyes at Han and growls again.

“Getting there,” Han says. “Why don’t you sit down?”

The Wookiee lowers himself to the smooth tarmac, glaring out of the bay at the people who have stopped fuelling or cleaning their machines in order to gawp.

“You might want to clear out,” Han says mildly to them, but nobody does. This is going to be a big job, and he could probably use some help, but not from any idiot who’s treating his first mate like a zoo animal.

Han uncoils the pressure hose, adjusts the pascal settings so that he doesn’t get bowled over and the temperature settings so that Chewie doesn’t kill him for freezing him, and trains the nozzle on his friend.

“Ready?”

Chewbacca’s rumbling response means,  _ I was ready two days ago _ .

Han turns the hose on and blasts him.

As usual, Chewbacca starts out miserable as his dense, coarse hair is soaked right through to the skin, exacerbating the mud problem. But as the rivulets of mucky brown water begin to course down and off his body, he brightens up. Han moves around him, spraying him down, wetting him right through, before shutting the hose off and retrieving the S bucket.

He soaps down Chewbacca’s back, where Chewbacca can’t reach, lathering the shampoo in as best as he can, forming bubbles as big as his head. Chewbacca bears it patiently, scooping up handfuls of the stuff to work into his chest and arms and places Han’s not about to embarrass his friend by publicly touching. Han works the suds into Chewie’s scalp and the back of his neck, and then lets Chewie stand up to do his own legs.

This is the point where Chewbacca reaches out to dump bubbles on Han’s head, massaging them in with one big ruffle of his fingers. Han swipes the foam away from his eyes and laughs, reaching for the hose again. “Rinse time.”

Chewbacca ducks to let Han play the spray over his head and shoulders first, the suds sluicing down and off his body. He gradually straightens up and Han circles him with the hose, rinsing all the shampoo away. It's an expensive luxury, but vastly preferable to having a muddy Wookiee tracking grime all through the ship. Not that he’s under any delusions that Chewie will stay clean for long, not in their line of business. 

Han shuts off the hose again and fetches the other bucket. Chewie crouches so Han can reach the top of his head and they repeat the process. The gathering of gawkers has increased. Han glances at and then ignores them. He has his priorities, and they involve getting Chewbacca lathered up and then rinsed off before the conditioner congeals.

The rinsing off is the easy part as far as Han's concerned; he turns the pressure up, turns the heat up, and just blasts away. It's not like he has to worry about actually drying Chewie off; the Wookiee will take care of that himself.

Which he does.

Chewbacca steps out onto the tarmac, not bothered overmuch by the onlookers, and begins to shake like the most oversized, overenthusiastic puppy ever. The last of the suds fly everywhere; water sprays out of his fur and all over the crowd, who scatter shrieking.

Han turns the pressure and heat back down on the hose and rinses his own hair off. Chewbacca rejoins him with a questioning growl and a head tilt toward the now thoroughly damp audience, who have quickly found reasons to no longer be an audience now they know what it entails.

"No, big guy, I gave them fair warning. They had time to get out of the way."

Another growl, this one less questioning and more tetchy. It's accompanied by a sneeze.

Han sighs. "I can't afford anything beyond the basics. If you want apple-scented, it's got to come out of your own pocket."     


End file.
